These Children that You Spit On
by KaleidoscopeEyes213
Summary: As they try to change their worlds... And all that's needed to make this change in the lives of five teens is an earring, a state championship patch, and a Saturday detention. Their thoughts on Sunday.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: ** I do not own the Breakfast Club or any of its characters. That honor goes to John Hughes.

**A/N: **Sorry, had to put fanfiction on hold for NaNoWriMo. But I'm baaaack! And while Across the Universe is under major reconstruction, I thought I would write a little something else to hold myself over. The Breakfast Club is my absolute favorite movie of all time, and I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to write down. So, here is my little three-chapter ficlet, and maybe, if it gets a good enough reception, I'll continue on to what I thank happens on Monday. But for now, here you go.

John Bender

Around and around and around, cold metal and precious stone, hard edges digging lightly into the tips of bare fingers on gloved hands, leaving imprints for a moment that disappeared as the pressure was released. Ripped gloves, rough, dirty hands twirling an earring made of fucking _diamond_, diamond, a stud that he never would be able to afford and never would have accepted under any other circumstances. But this instance had called for a bit of unorthodox behavior on his part, and besides, he didn't think he would ever be able to refuse Claire Standish anything, especially a gift that she was giving as a token of remembrance and perhaps a little bit of promise, too. Maybe not the sure, certain, cut-and-dried finality of a guarantee, but a spark of hope.

Such things were paid for with hard-earned money, an honest job, or at least a little work put in, some effort spared, even if not invested in the most ethical of occupations. He had, after all, screamed at Claire for taking everything that was given to her, and maybe he shouldn't have taken it, but he had. He'd decided for once in his life not to be an ass and just receive it graciously; if only because it meant maybe getting to talk to her come Monday. He supposed this particular gift was different; it was supposed to mean something, to hold some significance that was relevant to both the giver and the recipient. Not a carton of cigarettes given by a man who couldn't be bothered to give a damn, who was losing nothing through the presentation of the gift, but a diamond earring from a girl who wanted to show him that he was worth something, worth her time, worth a priceless gem. That he deserved to receive such a thing from her. That he was more important to her than that piece of expensive jewelry, and she would rather give something to him, something that held worlds of significance that neither of them could even fully comprehend, than keep it for herself. Because, to her, he was worth it, worth more than the diamond and more than the wealth and privileged life it stood for. The most important aspect of her life, more important than the cash that had been spent on the earring and more important than the popularity she received for her ability to afford such a thing. And that knowledge was more priceless to him than the gem in his ear.

Around and around and around went the diamond, twirling through rough fingers. Small, delicate, with a sort of fragile beauty, like glass that would shatter at the slightest provocation, and it is deceptive. Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in the background, strains of loud music, turned up to a deafening pitch as chords reverberated through the room, pounding and thrashing and ever so angry, shouting at the world, thrumming through the air with strong, pulsing vibrations with a power that could shatter glass in an instant, leaving behind nothing but crystalline fragments of something beautiful. And the diamond ought to have broken under the strain, but it didn't, for its delicateness was misleading, and it had a sort of quiet, resolute and unbreakable strength that was part of its beauty, perhaps.

And it should not have fit with the throbbing music in the background, should have appeared out of place as the foreground with a backdrop of savage, untamed anger, pain, rebellion, all those negative emotions, but it seemed to belong, and that was strange but at the same time oddly easy to comprehend, not predictable but understandable. The two very different kinds of strength complimented each other, so very different and yet simultaneously the same. _Stiffened wounds test their pride. Men of five, still alive through the raging glow.__  
__Gone insane from the pain that they surely know. _He did know pain. He did know that his scars not only showed that he'd been through a lot, but also that he was not invincible, and that did indeed hurt his pride; and so he always hurt others, because he wanted to prove that he was not the only one who could be hurt, not the only one who was weak, that it wasn't a weakness in _him_ alone, but in everyone. And he knew he was flawed, imperfect, and it was not just his scars that made him so, but also his pride.

He had yelled and screamed at Claire for her assurance that they would not be friends come Monday because he _knew _that he himself believed the same thing, that he would not have tried to keep the friendships alive, either. And in his inability to expose himself, to lose his dignity by admitting weakness, he had laid into her, letting his anger at himself ravage her, the one who had been brave, who had dared to tell the truth when he could not. And he had to admit he'd felt guilty after every insult he threw at her, but he couldn't help it, really, even though that was no excuse, and he knew it; when he had called her fat, when he had ridiculed her for keeping mum about the status of her sex life, when he had mocked her for being a virgin once she finally did reveal the truth. Hell, he had even made fun of her for her _lunch_. But some of the things she had said hurt him, too, and even some of the things she did; when they were talking about the party he would never have been invited to, as though he wasn't sitting right there, in hearing range of every word, when she had announced that the day had meant nothing, that by tomorrow everything would be forgotten and he would once again be no better than the dirt clinging to the soles of her boots. But at least they had both hurt each other in equal measures. So it was fair, even if it wasn't good or right.

He had lived through so many years of pain, both received and inflicted, and here he lay now, twirling a diamond earring between his fingers as brutal waves of intense, deafening music crashed into him from all sides.And the diamond seemed to absorb the destructive emotions, taking them out of the air but not into itself, rather obliterating them, and they disappeared from existence, gone without a trace, relieving the air of that bitter tension. And when the wall of anger and pain had been torn down brick by brick, all that was left was the air, silent and still and empty, yet at the same time full. Just like the diamond, cold but not unfeeling. It didn't make sense, but he didn't care.

He stood from his bed and stretched, his hands balling into fists above his head as he stood slightly on his toes and extended the muscles of his back to relieve some of the tension, a large yawn escaping his mouth as his jaw gapped down. He scratched his head and rubbed a hand across the stubble of his chin, noting the necessity of a clean shave but not caring enough to do anything about it. He pulled off the slightly rumpled clothes he had slept in, lifting the shirts up over his head, both the long-sleeved white and the lopped-off red plaid rising in one motion. He slid out of his pants as well before hanging the array of layered garments upon the back of a lone, rickety wooden chair which served as the room's only furniture aside from the old, rusty metal-framed cot with its creaky springs, thin blanket and lumpy mattress. He pulled on some old, ratty sweats and a baggy t-shirt, knowing that he wouldn't be going out anywhere that day; he had too much to think about, and didn't want his vivid thoughts and memories of the day before muted by the fuzzy high he usually favored over quality time spent in his father's house. Or rather, as he liked to think of it, the house of his late mother's husband.

He felt inexplicably _different_ today. His body was thrumming and buzzing just beneath the skin, a mixture of the music that seemed to be pounding through his veins alongside his blood and something else that seemed to be pounding within his heart and spreading out to the tips of his fingers and toes. It was like a radiation of warmth, a sort of fluttering that was both nervousness and contentment at once. Rotating, he turned off the radio which sat on the seat of the chair and the noise was gone, leaving behind nothing but quiet, motionless air whose stagnancy was only disrupted by the movement and breathing of a teenage boy. The pumping of the music was absent, but the strange humming of tiny, warm and electric vibrations did not cease, but almost seemed to intensify now that they were not interspersed with the thrum of the music.

It was well past noon as he made his way down the hall to the kitchen, a fact of which he was quite aware but rather indifferent to. He knew his father would be pissed, in more ways than one, but he couldn't really bring himself to care; besides, it was one less meal's worth of food wasted on a worthless, no-good, goddamn freeloading son of a bitch such as himself, so the old man really had no reason to complain. Although, he always seemed to find something to bitch about, mostly the shortcomings of his only son and the self-afflicted effects of the generous helpings of alcohol he consumed on what seemed to be an hourly basis. John Bender had long ago discovered that he liked his dad best passed out cold on the living room floor.

He swore under his breath as he raided the cabinets, finding them devoid of anything edible and filled with empty, broken bottles; and even in this state, these bottles were much less harmful than those that were whole and filled. Finally, after rooting around at the very back of the cupboard and narrowly avoiding splitting the skin of his arm on a sharp shard of jagged glass which was all that was left of the neck of a beer bottle, he came out triumphant with a packet of potato-powder. Carefully following the instructions on back of the package, he added water to the powder and put it on the heat before hoisting himself up to sit atop the counter while waiting for the potatoes to cook. He wondered at the fact that his old man was not standing there bitching at him for something or another, probably his lateness in rising being this morning's topic, but decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth as he looked fleetingly at the pile of bills stacked up beside him, not bothering with so much as a second glance at the envelopes or a second thought as to their contents. It would be, as he well knew, the same as always; they were in massive debt. Nothing new there.

He crossed his legs at the ankles and bobbed his foot up and down in time with the ticking of the timer set atop the stove as it counted out the minutes while the potatoes cooked. He wished there were a radio in the kitchen, because the silence of the house around him was oppressive and unnerving in the fact that it was not permeated by his father's shouts or burps or snores. That seemed to be his daily routine: holler, drink, sleep; yell, swig, slumber, over and over and over again, like an endless sick cycle broken only by the rather frequent sound of a fist against flesh or the sizzle of a cigar against skin, noises which inserted themselves so often into the routine that they became a part of it, only slightly fewer and farther in between. There was something wrong with it, John had enough knowledge of the home lives of others to understand that his was not normal, and it was strange in a bad way. His dad was a bad father, not a good father, and it was not normal or right, the things to which he subjected his son, the beatings and shouting and ordering around, as though it was not an extension of his own flesh and blood but a personal servant, there to do his bidding and act upon his every whim, like a sort of perverse slave owner. Then there was Vernon, and the way he threatened, and John had been so scared, though he would never admit it, when he had taken him into the closet, alone, and faked a punch, because he really had thought old Dick would hit it home. He seemed to hate John enough. And then Dick had insulted John, just like his father, and he had nodded, because he'd begun to think that maybe they were right. And it was wrong, fucked up, and John was well aware of this fact, but what was there to do? Life was not fair, and that was that.

Without his conscious decision to do so, his hand seemed to automatically and instinctively lift itself up to his ear and begin twisting the diamond stud, a stone that seemed so pristine and untouchable handled gently by a hand that appeared so incapable of such a tender touch. But things were rarely ever as they appeared; he knew that now, and he hadn't before. He hadn't realized it because he hadn't been looking for it, had taken the world at face value without bothering or even thinking to question the things that he saw or to contradict outward appearances. And he felt like a fucking girl, obsessing over a piece of goddamn jewelry for Chrissake, but he found that he couldn't really bring himself to give a shit, anyway. Which was surprising, but in a good way. Unlikely and unexpected yet satisfying. Just like the realization he had come to the day before that there was more to him, more to everyone, than he had ever anticipated. More to _her_. And that was the very best part.

And then there was a clunking on the staircase, and John took a moment to curse his father, curse himself, and curse the world as he quickly let his hand fall away from his ear, shaking his head so that his hair swung forward to cover the stud. For he knew that, if his father saw the earring, he would take it, even if that meant ripping it clean out of his ear, for John would surely not give it up without a fight. He would take it and sell it and use the money to buy booze that he would drink and upon which become intoxicated, at which point he would begin to shout, and then things would get physical and start on the fast track to becoming ugly, as they always managed to do. And he couldn't bear to think of Claire's gift, so generous and_ special_ to him (God fuck him and his girliness) being used as the catalyst to another turn of the cycle that caused him so much pain, inciting all the negative emotions that filled him on a regular basis.

He could not bring her, or anything associated with her, into that, for he couldn't bear to connect her in any way to his own sordid, tragic home life, because she was so pure and beautiful and sweet and innocent (Jesus Christ, he was an embarrassment to men everywhere) and he could not taint her with such darkness. And he couldn't take it if she was in any way associated with things that brought him so much pain, because he knew she had the power to hurt him, and he didn't want her to cause him pain, because she meant too much to him, and fuck manliness to hell. He didn't know how he had managed to grow so attached to a girl after knowing her for such a very short time and without having so much as felt her up as of yet, but there was something there between them that had never been there with anyone else, and he knew it, could feel it in the happy vibrations that tingled through his veins and across his skin, even if he was loathe to acknowledge it. He had to resign himself to the fact that this relationship and the attraction he felt were not solely on a physical level, as they normally were, but went much deeper, touching his heart more than his dick. He felt it in his chest as well as and maybe even more than in his crotch, which was a nice change of pace.

Not that he didn't want her in a physical sense, of course, and not that he wasn't aroused by her, because he definitely was. At the beginning, it had been just that, just the things on the surface, but out of everything else that day, everything that had changed and all the things that were now so very different, that was the most noticeable for him. He had allowed her in under his armor, for she had stripped his defenses away and he was now at her mercy, but he found that he liked this. He found that, sometimes, it was good to lose control, to hand it over to someone else and just let himself go, he himself and not the façade he showed to the rest of the world. And she had somehow found her way into his heart, and he knew it wasn't love, but he felt like it could become love. And he didn't even believe in love, really, but he found that, with Claire, he could believe. She made him feel safe and appreciated in ways he never had before. Oh, he really was turning into a girl now, with all these thought of feelings and love and bullshit like that, things he didn't even believe in, or at least, he hadn't before. Something had changed now, since Friday, and it seemed like years ago that he pulled the fire alarm that got him stuck in detention in the first place. And he couldn't help but feel that that one stunt was his finest moment, for it was what brought him to detention that Saturday, and without it he would still be the same as he had been two days before, his eyes not open fully to the world and the world not as fully open to him as both were now.

All he knew was that if on Monday everything reverted back to the way it had been before that detention, he would be unable to bear it. And then if, in a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, he saw Claire walking around school on the arm of some snot-nosed, rich-ass brat of a boy who was a perfect "gentleman" and everything that John knew he would and could never, ever be, he just might die. He would kick and scream and smoke himself into oblivion, just to wake up from unconsciousness to do it all over again until he died or killed every one of the already pitifully depleted number of brain cells he possessed within his head. And it was stupid, to think that he would die of a broken heart, and it only made him feel more girly and hate himself all the more. Because even if he wasn't in love, his heart was somehow still irrevocably invested in Claire in a strange, wonderful new way that it had never devoted itself to anyone before.

Although, to redeem himself in the eyes of the adolescent male within himself, he really was extremely turned on by her. He had learned, along with all of those new and strange and wonderful things about himself, that a virgin really could be all kinds of sexy. The way that she had always been the first to follow him, even when she knew she really, really shouldn't, as though she simply couldn't help but follow his example, follow him out the door, down the hall, to the closet. How she had defended him without fail, even when he stuck his head up her skirt. When she was high, the way she got all flirty and giggly and girly and so damn sexy that he had felt his mouth getting dry just looking at her in such a state. The way that she had come to him in that closet, risked her own neck for him, just for him, just so that she could find some way to somehow show him that not everyone thought him worthless, that someone was willing to do something for him, because they thought he was worth it. The way she had leant down toward him, slowly, ever so slowly, so curious and innocent and the tiniest bit awkward, unsure of herself, and it had been sexy; in fact it made his list for perhaps the number one most sexy thing he had ever seen in his entire miserable life. Which really was saying something.

And he had been completely disarmed in that moment, with nothing to break or tear apart or scream about, with no way and no reason to use the defenses he had honed so well over the years. And her ability to lower his voice from its normal loud, rambunctious volume to a bare whisper with just one innocent little kiss; that was the sexiest part, really. The hold she had over him, the way she saw the real him, his soul beneath all of his carefully constructed walls and his flawless façade, the persona he had fallen into. She had been able to soften his calluses, smoothing out his rough edges to reveal the truth behind the mask. And then, when they had kissed goodbye, and her tongue had slipped out to slide against his for only the barest of instants, the briefest of touches, the promise that it entailed, and it was so sexy, with meaning so profound and mind-blowing; he'd been so wrapped up in the significance that he hadn't even thought to feel the rush of victorious pride at having been the first guy to put his tongue in her mouth. One thing was for sure. John Bender was royally fucked. For life. And another thing was certain, too; the things John Bender thought and felt were nowhere near compatible with his actions.

But he didn't have to worry about betraying his manhood for much longer as the clopping of footsteps on the stairs culminated in the appearance of a scruffy, bleary-eyed man with a largely protruding beer belly. His defenses popped back up immediately, his mind constructing its walls as his body took on a posture of practiced indifference and his I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude kicked into gear, hiding the thoughts and emotions that were raging through his head in a dark, near-forgotten corner at the very back of his brain. His father's tired eyes roved over John and then he said, in a deep, hoarse voice roughened from the cigar smoke's effect on his throat, "You're a fucking idiot, Johnny. Waking me up at ten o' fucking clock in the goddamn morning with blasting your shit music. Disrespectful asshole, wakin' me up with that fuckin' noise so goddamn early. Stupid jerk. No-good, worthless prick, faggot, whore, bitch." And then he was off on a ramble, just a jumble of muttered insults that rose every once in a while to reach a crescendo before falling back under his breath and rising again before he seemed to run out of available names to use and began to start his barrage of grumbling verbal abuse all over again. He lumbered over into the kitchen with a kind of lurching unevenness to his steps, wincing every once in a while as a noise or sudden movement shot pain through his hangover-addled brain.

John rolled his eyes and hopped off the counter as his father approached, grimacing internally at the noise he made and the string of curses with which his father responded to the sound. And then, with a startling suddenness that caused John to jump near out of his skin, the ringing of the timer flared to life, harsh, shrill, sharp sound rending the still air that hung with a scent of stale beer and general body odor that always accompanied the presence of his father, and no doubt tearing through his father's eardrums as well, especially in his half-drunken, half-hungover state. And its effect on the pot-bellied man was easily discernable through his muffled shout of pain, and John couldn't help the slight widening of his eyes in fear of what he knew was to come. Even though it was expected and not at all unusual, John still found himself terrified as a fist came barreling toward his face, convoyed with the roar of, "FUCK YOU!" And as contact was made, fist against face, John was send stumbling backward, barely managing to keep his balance at the force of the blow to his cheekbone as he felt his left eye already beginning to swell, the stinging nearly unbearable.

An amalgam of pain, anger, resentment and shock coursed through John's mind, and yet even that was not enough to knock the thoughts of Claire Standish form his head. He marveled at this fact even as he began his internal mantra of _Oh Jesus fuck, oh Jesus fuck, oh Jesus fuck_ that always echoed through his head after such an incident as this. The incantation in his brain blocked out the negative emotions that stirred within him which would no doubt lead him to act rashly if acknowledged or acted upon, just as the recitation was meant to do, but it could not fully mute the tingling sensation he still felt radiating across his entire body from that one spot the skin of his neck where Claire had pressed her lips the day before. And that tingle set off a replay of events, bringing him away from the smelly, dirty kitchen with its peeling wallpaper and empty cabinets and back to a janitor's closet that the queen of the whole fucking school had gone to, risking the punishment of getting caught just to come and see him. To her, he was not worthless, he was not helpless, and in her presence, when he stood alone with her, he was in no danger of being hurt, because underneath all of her disdain born of popularity, she really didn't want to hurt anyone; especially not him.

As his father lumbered up the stairs and back to bed and the beer bottles stashed beneath it, still muttering obscenities under his breath the whole way up and carrying with him on a paper plate the potatoes John had made for himself, John finally managed to pull himself out of the chanting and memories into which he had immersed himself as a way of protection from his father and himself and his emotions. And he sunk to the floor, his back against a cupboard door, and resigned himself to the fact that it looked like this would be another day spent going hungry, absorbed once again it thoughts of Claire to distract him from the mounting ache of emptiness in his grumbling stomach.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: ** I do not own the Breakfast Club or any of its characters. That honor goes to John Hughes.

**A/N: **Here is the second installment, this time the right one… Sorry about that, by the way. Feel more than free to review

Claire Standish

Smooth, soft, strangely barren, unblemished by all save a tiny puncture hole running straight through, nothing there to scratch against the tips of dainty fingers sporting manicured, impeccably polished pink nails. An empty earlobe rubbed softly by the hands of a rich girl, hands that rarely ever themselves handled money, but often were wrapped around gifts bought by the money of others, nothing earned and everything presented unthinkingly. Never giving, always taking; until the day before, that is. The gift of the earring that had once adorned that now-empty ear, the first thing she had given to somebody with any thought at all put into its endowment. It had meant something, the giving of that diamond earring, something that she didn't really fully understand, and she was pretty sure the recipient really comprehended it, either.

Such things were bought by maids, no thought put into their bequeathal and not even looked at by those whose money was used to purchase them, by those who claimed to be doing the giving. Meaningless, costing so much of something that didn't really matter, and worth so much, yet so little of anything truly important. Money was something she never had want of, and it was so commonplace and expendable in her life that it had no meaning at all, was just a means to acquiring anything she could ever want, and she had only yesterday realized that not everything she desired was something that money could buy. Giving gifts was something she did all the time, for friends' birthday parties, weddings and baby showers of her parents' friends and business associates, and she gave them big, lavish, elaborate gifts because she could, to show people her status more than to extend any sort of kindness. That was the way it was done in her social circle. But giving an expensive set of china dishes to a woman she didn't even know in congratulations for a wedding she would not be attending was so very different from giving a diamond earring to a boy who had likely never even touched something of such expense in his life, taking it from her very own ear and wrapping his hands around it to show that it meant something more than just an enforcement of her own superiority.

Soft skin against the equally soft pads of fingers that had never done a day of work in their existence. Whenever she was alone in her room, she would take out the old records from her childhood, the album covers worn from use, and put the circular disks in her old record player. Perhaps it was more profound to have nothing there than for the tiny hole to be filled. At first glance, it is boring, bare and unremarkable, something unimportant, something next to nothing beside the magnificent jewel upon the opposite lobe. And as she lay in bed, finger skimming across her empty ear, the bouncy notes of "Rich Girl" by Hall and Oates played in the background, and she knew that the song had been right about her and how she used to be, before yesterday; she had taken her wealth and gone too far with the idea of her own superiority. And she had been wrong for taking everything given to her and never working for anything.

But now, things were different. Her ear may have been barer, and some might see that as a downgrading, but she saw it for what it truly was; an improvement, for the ear had before been obscured, hidden behind its glamorous embellishments, and now those had been stripped away, and its true beauty had been revealed; it was vulnerable, and there was something profound about the idea of that. Vulnerability was a bad thing, it meant weakness, but not now, not this. This vulnerability meant strength; it showed bravery enough to be vulnerable, because bearing your soul is scary, and it takes no small amount of courage to do so. There was a kind of honest truth to it, now that there was no expensive jewelry behind which it could be lost, and its beauty could not be attributed to its expensive decorations or other material things. There was a certain candidness to it now that had not been there previously, and that was what made it so extraordinary, what made it lovelier than the other ear; not its ornamentation, but its own attributes and the sincere innocence it possessed.

_Say money, money won't get you too far, get you too far._ And it was true; money could only buy materialistic things, things with no depth or meaning, things that would sit on a shelf unused and unloved, gathering dust and tarnished by years of neglect. And, more than anything, its magnificence was attested to by the reason for its exposedness, because she had taken the stud which had hidden her ear and given it to John Bender, bad-boy burnout, as a token of respect, an assurance of her belief in his worth, but most of all, as a testament to the decision she was making. In that moment, she had chosen her path; whichever one led to him.

_It's so easy to hurt others when you can't feel pain._ But she could feel pain, or at least she had yesterday; although, she knew that everyone had always tried to protect her from pain, or at least, no one had ever set out to hurt her intentionally. But John had seen that she needed that, needed to be ripped apart and trodden on, because no one else in the world would dare do that to her, and perhaps that was part of why she liked being popular; her height on the social ladder had protected her, made her untouchable. And in her invincibility, she had hurt others to ensure her permanent position at the top of the hierarchy, and she had known that it was wrong, but she had not cared, had not even noticed the cost of her own popularity, the price that others had to pay for the rose-tinted bubble of a world in which she lived. And now that she had been hurt, she would be a stronger, better person for it; she would know what it felt like, and that would cause her to pause and rethink her actions whenever her situation seemed to mandate the demeaning of someone else. And, most importantly, by tearing into her, he had exposed her weaknesses, her flaws, detriments that she had never known existed, perhaps had even seen as advantages, and now she knew what she had to fix, what she had to try to improve, so that she could better herself.

_You can get along if you try to be strong, but you'll never be strong._ Maybe not before; before she had been weak, flawed, imperfect, not a priceless diamond sold at an expensive shop, but perhaps a diamond in the rough, with ragged edges that needed to be chipped away so that she could become the person she was now certain that she wanted to be. Ragged edges that had been hidden, perhaps, or maybe they lay in plain sight but were terribly misleading, weaknesses masquerading as strengths, like fool's gold, tricking the eye into seeing and believing something that was not truly there. But now she had resolved to chip away her imperfections, and she knew that she could be strong now, now that she knew what strength entailed, now that John had shown her how.

She had decided that morning that she would stay in bed all day, because she really didn't need to spend the day in her father's company, being lectured about the company she kept, the people she entrusted her belongings in. How did she know that boy wouldn't turn around and sell the earring, and use the proceeds to invest in a lifetime supply of marijuana? She just knew. But how could she be absolutely, positively, one hundred percent sure? She couldn't. What was she doing with herself, hanging around with people from the other side of the tracks, from the hard walk of life, with people who needed her friendship, who deserved it, who was worth the risk, the choice and everything that came along with it, the good and the ill? Well, gee, she didn't know. Maybe because, underneath all of the indifferent, I-don't-give-a-fuck attitude, he was just as vulnerable as she was, just as easily hurt, that he was sweet and caring and worth so much underneath his gruff exterior, behind the walls erected as protection against the kind of people she had been, before, and was determined not to be anymore. Maybe because she could see, even if no one else could, even if, at first, she hadn't either, that John yelled at her for her comment about the group's not being friends on Monday because he was hurt by it, and the only way he knew to deal with hurt was to lash out at others. And she really, really didn't want to hurt him.

Her mother was supportive of her decision, but for all the wrong reasons. She thought Claire was simply going through a phase, that she needed to slum it for a little while and get it all out of her system, and then it would be over, done with, stuck in the past. And there was a part of her mom that just wanted to get a one-up over her father in Claire's opinion of her, trying to be the favored parent, just as they were always wont to do. A battle fought between the two parents in which she was only a pawn, something to be moved around on a chess board in order to further themselves in the game, to come one step closer to winning. Of course, she knew that they weren't entirely indifferent as to her wellbeing and happiness, but they often lost sight of her thoughts and ideas and opinions and the true desires and needs of her heart as they were swept under by the tide of their own eternally raging battle for conquest of something they had long since forgotten.

Claire rolled over onto her side, propping her head on her hand, the underside of her upper arm braced against the pink and white paisley bedspread that she had been sleeping on since the tender age of seven. From this position, she was in full, direct view of the mirror sitting atop her vanity so that she could see the perfect reflection of herself, in the pale pink camisole and her black and white zebra striped bottoms that served as pajamas, an exact replica of the figure stretched out on the girly bedspread of an expensive, lavishly decorated and engraved queen-sized bed. She looked no different than she normally did, but she didn't _feel _the same. She felt inexplicably _different_ today. She felt lighter, somehow, more free, as though a burden had been lifted from her shoulders or a heavy weight of armor shed away to reveal the real _her_ underneath. She felt like she could fly, almost, and absurd as it sounded, it was the truth. It seemed to originate in her chest, like a strange openness within her, as though her heart itself were lighter, somehow, the beats more pronounced but at the same time strangely fluttery and less of a pounding than normal. And then it spread out through her, the lightness, all the way out to her fingers and toes, and it felt good. It felt _wonderful_. It wasn't love, but she felt like, given time and fuel to the fire, that's what it might grow into.

Slowly, she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, feeling around the oval rug stretched out across the floor with the tips of her toes before sliding them into the slippers she found after a brief search. Slowly, she made her way over to the vanity, one foot in front of the other, taking her time like a baby learning to walk for the first time. She sat down on the stool before the piece of furniture, pink to match her bed and her shirt and her walls and her rug, nearly everything in the entire room colored in that hue, and for once in her life, she was rather sickened by it, by the conformity of it. But she really did like pink, and not just because that was what she was expected to like; it really was her favorite, but perhaps not in such excess as this. A change in pace every once in a while was refreshing. All her lipstick was pink too, when there were so many other tones and shades available to her, and she felt the inexplicable urge to boycott it all of a sudden, to go into school the next morning barefaced, with nothing to obscure her visage, no makeup to hide behind.

And as she looked in the mirror, staring at her lips in contemplation, she began to think of the new feeling that had taken residence on the soft pink skin, reaching up to touch it gently, reverently, the place that had pressed against the skin and the lips of John Bender. And her desire to skive off on the lipstick application the next day increased tenfold, just so that the tingly sensation would not be taken away, so that she knew the last thing that had touched her lips was the bad-boy burnout that she had come to like as maybe more than just a new friend. And thoughts of her own lips quickly diverged into thoughts of his, the way they would curl up into a smile, sometimes roguish and sometimes sweet and sincere, the way they had twitched at the corner when she had gone to him in the closet, the way they had parted in surprise every time she had taken a stance against Vernon on his behalf, the look in his eyes and on his face upon seeing her standing in the doorway of the janitor's closet for him. And she had done it for him. He had not expected to see her there, and she really never would have believed it herself, had she not consciously chosen to seek him out.

She had gone because she knew. She knew he took a little too much to heart the things his father and Principal Dick and her friends said about him, the horrible lies they piled and heaped upon him. They drowned him in their accusations that ate away at his self esteem so that their doubts became self-doubts that he harbored within himself, hidden behind his devil-may-care attitude, but present all the same, somewhere just beneath the surface. Some part of him really did think that he was not good enough for her, and she had wanted to show him that no matter what anyone else thought, their parents, classmates, teachers, even he himself, she didn't agree with them, didn't find herself to be in any way superior to him. Found him worthy of her, whatever that meant. She knew it had meant something to him, from that momentary look of complete surprise that had, for the span of an instant, crossed his face and taken away all the airs he put on, and it may not have lasted more than a fraction of a second, but it was enough.

And then he had covered it up with a smartass comment and she had smiled, knowing that it was his way of making up for moments where he was unsure of himself, a means of hiding any social awkwardness he may have felt, like every teenager occasionally does, or some inability to articulate his feelings, converting thoughts into words. He had, for what was probably one of the first times in his life, not known what to say. And when she had leaned down and kissed him, her lips briefly brushing the bare skin of his neck, he had been completely speechless. He'd not even had a sarcastic remark to hide his complete and utter inability to mask his astonishment and wonder at the thought of _her_ willingly reaching out to _him_, touching him with her mouth because it was what she _wanted_ to do. And she felt honored, really, that he felt safe enough around her after that to let himself go, to allow his amazement to show to her, like he was confiding in her a secret, allowing her to see him for who he truly was, inside.

She really did think he was funny, though. Even his rudeness was amusing, when not directed at her, and she admired his ability to make a joke out of Vernon, his adversary, so that he was not fighting with angry shouts and hissed threats, but with humor and expertly executed sarcasm; and it was really rather clever. He always had a leg up over the principal, because he never stooped to his level of bullying tactics, but rather stood above him and called his bluff; and even if sarcasm was the lowest form of wit, it was a long shot better than Vernon's strategy. And he was sometimes juvenile and petulant and too proud to allow the principal to get away with the last word under his belt, but he tried; he really did. And then, when Andy had been ridiculing her for her self-pity concerning the situation with her parents, which was really not entirely unfounded, he had, in his own strange, roundabout and perverse way, jumped in to her defense, even if it hadn't seemed like it right off. Which was actually kind of cute, and she was pretty sure that if Bender had heard that thought, girl or no girl, he would have slugged her in the face; to think that he, bad-boy burnout that he was, could ever be referred to as _sweet_.

When he had started to lay into her about the fact that she was a virgin, even though she never admitted to the fact until much later on, she had to admit there was a spark there, ignited somewhere within her, and maybe it was the awakening of a part of her that wanted to be a rebel for once, the part that had become more and more prominent as the day wore on. Maybe it had awoken the part of her that wanted to feel the things he described, and she had been frightened at the fact that she found herself wanting him to be the one to show her. She had been attracted to him, physically at least, and he had known it and used it to his advantage. But some part of her had liked it, and that had unnerved her. And then when Andy came to her rescue, she had thought that was rather sweet, too, but it wasn't the same; she didn't feel the same excited flip-flop of the stomach that she had when John defended her.

And then she'd heard about how his father hurt him, and it had felt like a punch to her own gut, and she felt like she should be the one protecting him, because he had no one; and maybe that's when she began to realize how alone John Bender really was, how terribly lonesome he must feel, how he must have, under all of his brashness and recklessness, been scared out of his wits. How, whenever Vernon let into him, he must have been reminded of his own father, the way he had beaten him and put him down, and it must have been horrible. And she wished he didn't have to have all of his armor, the gruff exterior that he presented for the world to see, when inside he just wanted someone on his side, someone with whom he could feel safe. And his demeanor might have hidden his weakness from predators but it also hid his need for a friend, and so he could not be healed because no one knew the extent of the damage. And when Vernon had told John what he'd be in five years, she had wanted to punch the principal, because she knew John had been thinking of his father, and how he wanted to be nothing like him, and yet Vernon appeared to think it was inevitable. But Claire knew it wasn't; John wouldn't end up like that. She wasn't sure how she knew it, but she did.

And it was all because of the fact that, when they were all certain to be caught and punished, he had gone out on a limb for them all. But he had looked at Claire right before he did it, and she was almost positive that she had seen something in his eyes, something that said he was doing it for her. Something that said he didn't have much to offer her, and he wasn't exactly the richest or most expressive or openly caring person in the world, but that he was willing to try, and he _did_ try. He offered her something more than money, and even though she might not have been quite sure what it was, it was important. It was the best thing she had ever received. Because if he was willing to try for her, that somehow made more of an impression than anything, was somehow more profoundly meaningful than all else. It had made her want to try for him, had made her come to him in the end, because she was willing to strive for a change. It was saying that she was making an attempt, her _best_ attempt, not to confine herself to the conformity in which she lived, to go out on a limb herself, to be daring and brave and deep and true and meaningful. She wanted to show him that she really did _care_.

He'd introduced her yesterday to so many new feelings, and it was simultaneously frightening and thrilling. And as she contemplated these exciting new discoveries of things within herself, she barely registered the soft knock that sounded at the door. But she did hear it, and called out absently for the knocker to enter, hearing the sound of the door being pushed open and the weight of someone stepping over the threshold. When she turned in her vanity stool to confront her caller, she immediately recognized her father, in his expensive clothes, with his impeccable hairdo, not a single strand out of place. It was almost enough to be disgusting, the level of conformity to which he sank, and she was suddenly glad to be getting out of that while she still could, because she didn't think she could spend the rest of her life pretending to be someone she was not. No, she would not be like her parents, and neither would John, and they both understood that, about themselves and each other, because they were both going to try to be different, and they _would_, even if it killed them. She just hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"Hey, honey." It was so normal it was almost strange, because to her, everything was so very different, and this should not be the same, either; she wanted it to change. She had always found comfort in familiarity and conventionality, because it was easy to follow the crowd, to be like everyone else, to be accepted. But now, she wanted to be different, and although she still wanted to be accepted, she wanted it to be for her in and of herself, rather than her in comparison to everyone else. But most of all, John was different, and she wanted John. It was only an added bonus that he seemed to like the real her rather than the façade she put on for the rest of the world to see, and that made her feel special and wanted and oddly safe, safer even than she felt while living in conformity. She felt safe enough to be herself, to show the real her, and this feeling of security, of self-assurance and true self-worth, was one of the best of all the new feelings John had ignited inside of her.

When she only replied with a small smile and a slight nod of acknowledgment, he sighed deep in his chest, evident in its slow, steady expansion and deflation, before continuing. "Claire, honey, I know you feel like you want to be able to make your own, independent decisions, but this… I really want you to think about what you're doing. This rebellion thing doesn't make me want to give you any kind of freedom, I mean, it actually makes it seem to me that you aren't ready for the responsibility that comes along with the power to make your own choices. This boy, he seems like the reckless, punk type—"

But Claire interrupted him, lifting a hand as a signal to pause. "Daddy, you can't just classify him like that. He isn't any 'type' of anything; he's just him."

"Oh, you know I just don't want you to get hurt, honey, and it seems like this boy would hurt you very easily and without much regret for doing it. I only want the very best for my little girl, you know, and I really don't think he's what's best for you; actually, I don't think he's good for you at all. Now, I don't want to have to forbid you from seeing someone, but if you can't find the sense to distance yourself from him, I'm afraid I'll have to step in so that—"

Now Claire felt the burning fury that his words set alight in her heart, and the flames only intensified as they were fed by her anger at the loss of the light, floaty feeling in which she had been reveling before her father had come in here, seemingly with the sole intention of deflating her. And so she couldn't help but to snap out, "You don't know him like I do, Dad. Besides, even if you did try to stop me from seeing him, I would just go to Mom and she would let me do what I want, so there's really no point at all in setting a restriction in the first place, if it's only going to be reversed." Her voice was cold and matter-of-fact in an attempt to keep the fiery shouts locked within her that strained against the back of her throat at bay.

Her father gave her such an injured look that she almost found herself regretting what she'd said, but not quite, because she knew he was just upset that she had taken her mother's side in the argument, and therefore lost him this particular battle. Maybe, if she really had thought he'd cared about her enough to do such a thing for her sake and her benefit alone, she might have been easier on him, might have taken the time to reason and try to avoid hurting him. But as it was, she just watched as he stood slowly from the bed where they had both gravitated at some point early on in the conversation and turned toward the door, only looking back to say quietly, "I hope you know what you're getting yourself into, honey," before silently exiting. He shut the door softly behind him, leaving her to flop down on her back in the bed with her lower legs dangling over the side, images of John filling her head even as her good mood dissipated and the gnawing ache of guilt mounted in her stomach.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: ** I do not own The Breakfast Club or any of its characters. That honor goes to John Hughes.

**A/N: **The last chapter. Tell me what you think and if you want me to continue with the story.

Allison Reynolds

Line by line, dark, light, long, short, swift strokes, slow strokes, gliding across a sea of white, black marks marring the creamy surface, adding texture, adding dimension, adding life. Baggy sweater, dark button down, dark scarf, big tent of a skirt, gray leggings, black Chucks; all familiar, all the same, all unchanged since yesterday, the day before, the day before that, as long and far back as memory serves to remember. All of it the same, from toe-tips to chin, and then upward from there… upward was different. The black around the eyes was not as dark as it normally was, not as pronounced, although still undeniably present. That was a small change, really, but a change nonetheless. But there was a bigger change, a change that was so great, so monumentally and mind-blowingly different that she almost felt like she wasn't the same person. And in a way, she wasn't, because she had changed, too; for the better. It was in the dark strands that normally hung, limp and shaggy, in her eyes, obscuring her face, covering her visage so that she was as invisible to everyone as she was to her parents; it had changed from the way it had looked yesterday morning, not hiding her but rather pulled back by a bright white ribbon, such a startling clash against the dark shades of all other clothing, but it was a wonderful contrast to the ensemble, a fantastic way to break the monotony of normalcy.

She was currently plugged into her walkman, listening to the soothing cadence and rhythm of a poem called "Howl."

_I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed__  
__by madness, starving hysterical__  
__ naked,__  
__dragging themselves through the negro streets at__  
__dawn looking for an angry fix,__  
__angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient__  
__heavenly connection to the starry__  
__ dynamo in the machinery of night . . ._

She knew that Beat Poetry was not exactly hip, of course, but she didn't really care whether or not it was the most popular thing to listen to. She liked it, and that was really all that mattered. She had never really given a second thought to how others perceived her, or what others were doing and saying or wearing, because she would not let conformity control her life; she was in control, and her alone. Until now. Now, she felt like maybe Andy was in control too. But no, that didn't seem quite right, either; it was more that Andy seemed to have a great impact, an astonishing level of influence over the way in which she controlled herself. It was a strangely exciting new concept, that someone could hold so much power over her and yet not make her feel pressured or controlled. In fact, she maybe even felt a little freer, now, than ever before.

She felt inexplicably _different _today. She had definitely changed yesterday; or maybe it wasn't really her who was different, but _something_ undoubtedly was. And then, thinking on it for a moment, she suddenly realized that what had changed was the face she showed to the world; it was like a mask that she had always hidden behind before, the mask she showed to the world every day as she marched out to face the place and people that didn't recognize her in any way, had been shattered to reveal the true her underneath. And maybe she herself had changed a little bit too, because she didn't think such an experience as that of revealing oneself, at their truest and realest and most vulnerable, could leave the heart unmarked. And the people she had met, had actually become _friends_ with, had made their impressions upon her soul, as well. And Andy; he had definitely left some part if himself with her and only her, and that had served to change her too. And she felt honored, really, that he would trust her so much with something so important as his caring and affection and potential love.

But she was still the same person, really, with only little changes; albeit, these miniscule changes were made in the deep components of her being, parts of herself that really mattered. But she was still herself, still an individual. And her supposed metamorphosis on the day of the detention had not been a betrayal of self; it had simply been the last facet of her mask breaking away. In allowing Claire to do something for her, she had been placing her trust in the other girl, and that was what mattered. Not the makeover or the new look, but the significance of the acceptance of a kind, friendly gesture, and the strength it took to let someone give her something with only hope and no concrete evidence that they would not hold it over her head. Why was Claire doing it? Because Allison was letting her. Why was Allison letting her? Because she had finally opened up enough to allow herself to put her faith in Claire, which was the most important thing, the thing that showed all of the changes she had made, the inner strength she had revealed and unleashed upon shedding her façade. And she had, for once in her life, not been disappointed.

And then she had gone out to show herself to Brian and Andy, and they had both seemed so pleasantly surprised that she found herself glad at having taken the chance and invested her trust in Claire. And Andy had been unable to take his eyes off of her; not the new clothes, not the headband, not the makeup, but the face underneath, as though seeing it and it alone, in all of its unobscured beauty, was as awe-inspiring as looking upon a bona fide angel, and she had felt so flattered and happy and safe enough to be pretty but at the same time to be herself. The way he looked at her made her feel as though the real her underneath it all—the real her that shone through, making itself apparent in her clothes and the strange intensity of her gaze and the metaphors in which she spoke—could be beautiful, too. Andy made her feel beautiful.

She looked at her dark knitted bag and touched the State Champion patch she had sewn there as soon as she arrived home after detention, and she smiled as she trailed her fingers over it. It was a physical manifestation of the union of her heart with Andy's, because she felt like, even though she didn't love him yet, the feelings he inspired within her had the potential to become love. And the patch was her reminder of the part of Andy she now had housed within herself, and the part of her own heart she had given to him. It was symbolic, really, metaphoric; and she would know about that, with her strange affinity for Beat Poetry and her strange, dark, mysterious artistic flair, because metaphors were such a big part of her life and her personality and her soul itself. She was taking him into herself, and she would help to cleanse him of his inability to be his own man and stand up to his overbearing father. And he in turn would help her to feel pretty, and maybe even to actual believe in herself and her potential to be something beautiful, something more than what she felt like, more than the nothing like which her parents and the world treated her, how they all thought of her. Because he didn't think she was nothing; she was important to him, and he would let her know it, and never let her forget.

Andrew Clark

Thump, thump, thump, raw skin stretched over aching knuckles smashed repeatedly against fabric with a strange plasticity to it, woven with fibers meant to endure against the strength of exactly these such hits. Fists pumping in a steady rhythm, bouncing on the toes, always prepared to throw the next punch, weight constantly shifting into ideal position to be thrown forward, lending power to pack the punch hard, to land it strong, effectively incapacitating the opponent. Win, win, win; it was all about the win. But he didn't want to win, not anymore, and maybe he never even had in the first place. But the words were engrained in the folds of the brain, burned into the neurons as they zapped through the usual signals, with such aversion to change that it revolted him. He hated it, hated the punching and the efficient use of weight and the winning, always the winning, and the systems of the body that made him feel like victory was all that he needed, the most important thing in the world. Because it wasn't. It was the most inconsequential aspect of his life, and he knew that now, always had, somewhere deep within him, in his heart and not his head, but it came through clearly now, the rebellion against his father the influence his old man had over him. He was his own person, and he needed to be in control of himself, like Allison. Allison was always her own master, and she had taught him that he needed to be in charge of himself, too, and she would help him with that, solve his problems alongside him, stand with him as he tackled his issues.

As he worked out, there was music playing in the background, seventies rock; stuff the entire wrestling team liked, and he liked it too, but not just because everyone else did. He really did have a strange affinity for it, he himself and not the part of him that was controlled by his coach and his father and his teammates. Currently, "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd blared noisily from the speakers and sped over to reach his ears as sweat dripped from every pore in his body, falling in rivulets down his brow and into his eyes, his face; he could taste the salt on his tongue as the smell of it filled his nostrils.

_Now I've got that feeling once against; I can't explain, you would not understand. This is not how I am. I have become comfortably numb._ And he had become numb, numb to the sickness he used to feel building in his stomach as he did and said everything that his coach and his father told him to do and say. No one would have understood him if he told them that he was not really himself at those times, that he was his father's ideal son, a son that did not truly exist outside of his father's own mind, in his fantasy world. He was living a lie. And he had never seen fit to do anything about it, had never been able to break the numbness for long enough to take action; not before yesterday, that is. Yesterday had changed everything, and it was all still changed today. He felt inexplicably _different_ today. Like the numbness had finally fallen away, and feeling was returning at long last.

He knew that he was still the same person he had always been inside, and that only the face he showed to the world had changed, that his mask of father-induced fakeness, of falsity that he had allowed his father and coach to paint over his blank numbness had finally been removed. He was finally putting his true self on display, and he could not deny that it was refreshing, to finally cease the procession of his lie of a life and to start being as the boy he truly was and always had been, somewhere deep within. But maybe he had changed a bit as well, because he was pretty sure that anyone could learn as much about themselves as he had yesterday without going through a little bit of change in the process, even if the only change was in perspective. And he knew that Allison had changed him as well, for the better. She had found her way into his heart, and he into hers, and he liked that; he wanted to be united to her in such a way. He liked Allison. He thought she was beautiful in her own quirky, intense way.

In fact, her strange passion was what drew him to her, in a way, and her ability to be herself and be proud of who she was, even if she did have a certain kind of façade of her own, in the way that she used her quirks, which were real and true parts of her, to be sure, as a distraction from her issues. And then there was her tendency to turn questions on their head, volleying them right back in order to avoid answering. But she had always stayed somewhat true to herself, letting her personality show through in the way she dressed and even the way she acted, too. And maybe she did have problems, but he wanted to help her through them just as he knew she would help him through his own troubles. He felt stronger with her, and he liked feeling strong and knowing that she was lending him that strength; because she was strong, and he liked the idea of being with someone who was equal with him in power, even if their strength came through in very different ways, manifesting itself in different aspects of their personalities. And now that his numbness was gone, he could finally harness the power within him and use it to break free of his father's and coach's expectations in order to be his own person and learn to control himself, living the way he wanted to rather than the way they wanted him to. To be true to himself rather than living a lie.

It was strange how easily she had been able to peer past the father-induced lies and the numbness, seeing into his very soul and the crux of his problem, but, then again, when he thought about it, he had been able to see through her mask as well. True, hers was different from his, letting more of herself show, but it was a façade all the same. And he had no idea how he had deciphered the riddle that was Allison Reynolds; it had not been intentional, even, but simply seemed natural that he could look past the front she put up to ward off the world, a world that had given up on her and shunned her. She had probably been able to see through to his soul just as easily, and probably knew as little about the reason for it as he did, and he found that he was okay with that, with not knowing, because what mattered in this case was the end and not the means. He knew it wasn't always like that, but this time it seemed that it was.

And as he shot a glance over at his letterman's jacket that sat on a metal folding chair nearby, he noticed the absence of his State Champion's patch, the blank expanse of blue fabric standing out like a sore thumb, so different from how it normally looked, and he liked it. Different was good, he decided; especially in this case. She had taken his patch away from him because it was a memory of his father's constant pushing and the negative effect that it had; it showed that she would help him to rid himself of that influence. Allison liked metaphors, he knew, and that's what this felt like. She was saying that she would take him for who he was, all of him, even the bad, and help him to change so that he was better than before, to help him tackle the bad aspects of him. And she was also taking a piece of him for herself, because a part of his heart really did belong to her. And it wasn't really love; at least, not yet. He felt like it could be, though; someday. And he knew that she, in turn, had given a piece of her own heart to him, and he was determined to protect it in any way he could, because any part of her was worth holding onto. She was beautiful; every little piece of her. And he would be a fool not to keep her close to him, or to do anything to lose her. He was determined to do this right.

Brian Johnson

_You see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, a princess, an athlete, a basket case, and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at seven o'clock this morning. We were brainwashed. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely, The Breakfast Club._ Words on a loop, replaying over and over and over again, a broken record never ceasing in it's rotation, spinning on and on into oblivion, into eternity. The words are the same every time, saying one thing and meaning what they say, but meaning something else too, underneath, something deeper, more abstract. More feelings invoked by the words than the meaning of the words themselves. Unity, understanding, change, triumph, truth. Important things, vastly important, phenomenally significant, astonishingly meaningful, deep. Feelings worth more than the words used to describe them, more complex than any amount or quality of adjectives can hope to convey. There was an indescribable sense of victory there, as though, on that day, they won something more important than a state championship or a prom royalty election or another two months of detention or a new look or even an A+ in shop, during that time spent in the library and the halls and a random janitor's closet.

It was like they won a war, a war in opposition of stereotypes that they had never before dared to even question, let alone unite in mutiny against; but when they had finally risen up to challenge the prejudices that enshrouded them, they succeeded in destroying the classifications civilization had placed upon them. They had won, had proven once and for all that they didn't have to be the people society thought they were and expected them to be; they were so different from each other, and yet strangely the same. There was some force that, despite their incongruity in relation to one another, seemed to unite them together, in a way that couldn't quite be described or explained; only experienced. But maybe, through that letter, that essay, that expression of their newfound beliefs, they had been able to convey some sort of understanding to Principal Vernon. And perhaps there was some element within those words, some feeling they evoked, that Vernon himself was in some way familiar with, that some part of him could comprehend, or maybe even relate to.

All of them were victims of the pressure that was put upon them based on the stereotypes people so often categorized them into, and that was what made them all so much the same; they all had problems, and they all had good traits and bad ones. They were all bizarre and beautiful and intelligent and talented and a little bit corrupt in their tendency to sometimes bend and break the rules, their propensity to, once in a while, take some small amount of delight in the trill of being bad for the hell of it. They were all misfits, really; none of them, in their heart of hearts, the real truth of their lives and their personalities and their very souls, truly fit into the roles they played, because they were all, to a certain degree, only acting. It wasn't really possible to take them and confine them to a certain type or classification, because they were all more difficult to define than that, more complex than the stereotypes allowed for. They were a lot like each other, with a lot to prove and so many people to blame for so many wrongs that had been done to them in their lifetimes; they were just people, looking for someone who could understand them, empathize with them, and maybe even love them a little bit. And they had found that in each other on that day, in that library during that detention that had changed them all for the better, that had revolutionized their perspectives on the world and on one another. Brian knew that he felt empowered by that day, strengthened so that he had become greater, in a way, than he ever had been before.

And it was okay that he didn't get the girl—either one of them—because he felt like he didn't _need_ a girl in order to feel different than he had the day before; he had new friends, and that was really all that mattered to him. He had new ideas, and he could effect change within himself; he was not in need of someone else to assist him in his change, because he felt like it was something he had to do by himself, for himself, and only he could do it, or it would rather defeat the entire purpose. And when Monday came, he really wouldn't take them and cut them apart and sully the purity of that day, using the vulnerability exposed against them, hitting them where it hurt. He hadn't done it to Carl, even after Bender had ridiculed him for his friendship with the janitor, instead bidding him goodbye with a smile rather than ignoring him or putting him down to save face, and he would extend the same courtesy, that identical hand of friendship, to them. He wouldn't hurt them intentionally; he wouldn't do it, and he was pretty sure that, at the end of the day, they wouldn't, either. Maybe they wouldn't stick up for him, but they wouldn't tread him down, either; of that he was fairly sure.

And maybe he and his friends did look up to Claire and her friends, because they were beautiful and well-liked and all that, but at the same time he pitied them for their inability to defy conformity and the way that they felt the need to go along with what their friends were doing and saying rather than being true to themselves. And he knew that, in a way, those types of people—if they could be classified as a "type," which they couldn't, as yesterday had proven—envied him, too, and his friends' ability to be themselves, the freedom that they allowed themselves to have, freedom to go their own way. They all envied each other, to a certain extent, for so many different reasons, because they all could identify with one another; they were really not all that different when it came down to it. Except that they were different, really different; they were all individuals, with their own personalities and perspectives and ways of living and looking at things, but they were not different in the ways that really mattered. There was something inside of all of them that was so universally human, not confined to jocks and princesses and burnouts and nerds and madmen; not even confined to teenagers alone, but to the whole of the human race. They were all people in the end.

Maybe Brian really did have nothing to lose by befriending them, but he thought that maybe he was giving something up, taking a risk. He had something to lose because if and when they did come in Monday and slice him apart, rip into him because of their own inability to go against the tide of what was expected or required of them, then he was losing not only his friends, but something that he felt he'd gained in that day of detention. And he didn't think he could deal with that any more than they could deal with their friends' reaction to him, because that detention had changed his life, and he didn't want everything to go back to the way it was, for the changes and, ultimately, the entire experience of the day to end up meaning nothing at all, when he had seen and placed so much significance in the changes that had occurred. It had been important to him, and he didn't want to lose this sense of triumph that had been instilled within him with the victory they had achieved over the stereotypes to which they were held and to which they, at some level, held themselves. He wanted one thing never to lose its meaning; The Breakfast Club.


End file.
